Criminogenic needs and the transformative risk subject
| Published date | 01 January 2005 |
| Author | Kelly Hannah-Moffat |
| Date | 01 January 2005 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1462474505048132 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
03 048132 (to/d) 23/11/04 3:08 pm Page 29
Copyright © SAGE Publications
London, Thousand Oaks, CA
and New Delhi.
www.sagepublications.com
1462-4745; Vol 7(1): 29–51
DOI: 10.1177/1462474505048132
PUNISHMENT
& SOCIETY
Criminogenic needs and
the transformative risk
subject
Hybridizations of risk/need in penality
KELLY HANNAH-MOFFAT
University of Toronto, Canada
Abstract
This article examines the discrepancies between theories of risk and penality and
emergent strategies of risk/need identification and management. Working back from
the strategies themselves, I argue that the current generations of risk/need technologies
are a significant departure from the pessimistic theoretical accounts of risk in criminal
justice associated with the ‘new penology’ and ‘actuarial justice’. I argue that risk knowl-
edges are fluid and flexible and capable of supporting a range of penal strategies. The
evolution and meanings of risk in correctional assessment and classification are
examined to show how understandings of risk have shifted from static to dynamic
categorizations. I show how the concept of need is fused with risk, how particular
conceptions of ‘need’ and ‘risk’ are situated in local penal narratives, how need recon-
structs risk and revives correctional treatment as an efficient risk minimization strategy.
I argue that strategic alignment of risk with narrowly defined intervenable needs
contributes to the production of a transformative risk subject who unlike the ‘fixed or
static risk subject’ is amenable to targeted therapeutic interventions. Newly formed risk/
needs categorizations and subsequent management strategies give rise to a new politics
of punishment, in which different risk/needs groupings compete for limited resources,
discredit collective group claims to resources, redistribute responsibilities for risk/needs
management and legitimate both inclusive and exclusionary penal strategies.
Key Words
classification • need • new penology • risk • theory
Contemporary scholars argue that we are moving towards a ‘risk society’, where many
aspects of social life are governed through objective, actuarial predictions of risk, and
where institutional and organizational structures are ‘embracing risk’ (Baker and Simon,
29
03 048132 (to/d) 23/11/04 3:08 pm Page 30
PUNISHMENT AND SOCIETY 7(1)
2002).1 Much like other social problems, crime is viewed as a calculable, avoidable,
governable risk. ‘Criminals’ are characterized as a risky population to be efficiently and
prudently managed by the state, as well as by citizens and a host of non-state agencies
(Simon, 1993; O’Malley, 1996, 1998, 1999, 2000; Rose, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2002;
Ericson and Haggerty, 1997, 2002; Stenson and Sullivan, 2001; Ericson and Doyle,
2003). Various groups are profiled and regarded as ‘at risk’ (women, youth, and
children). Offender populations routinely are subdivided, categorized, and classified
according to levels of risk (i.e. high, medium, or low). Certain offender groups are
perceived to be exceptionally risky, requiring special legislative control (i.e. sex offend-
ers, mentally ill, recidivists, squeegee kids, and the homeless). Many argue that risk is
a central recognizable feature of penal, legal, and administrative rationalities.
Current analyses of punishment claim that risk and connected actuarial strategies are
displacing welfare strategies, which tailor interventions according to an individual’s
needs (Garland, 2001). For example, in their seminal article on the ‘new penology’,
American scholars Feeley and Simon (1992), argued that modern penal policies have
shifted away from individualized rehabilitative models, towards more strategic, admin-
istrative population management approaches that rely on actuarial techniques of quanti-
fying and assessing the ‘risk’ of certain prisoners. The authors claimed that the ‘new
penology’ does not seek to ‘change’ offenders are through ‘targeted interventions’, rather
policies are concerned with efficiently identifying and managing a person at risk of
reoffending, while minimizing the potential risk to the community (Feeley and Simon,
1992; also see Simon, 1993). Likewise, Garland (2001), in The Culture of Control,
argued that the welfare penal mode is muted in favour of a punitive, expressive, risk
conscious penal mode. Accordingly, offenders are ‘seen as risks that must be managed.
Instead of emphasizing rehabilitative methods that meet the offender’s needs, the system
emphasizes effective controls that minimize costs and maximize security’ (p. 175).
Within this literature, welfarism and neoliberalism tend to be thought of in a linear and
one-dimensional way, proclaiming that the arrival of neoliberalism and risk has
displaced welfare.
Although the discursive shifts outlined by Garland (2001), Feeley and Simon (1992,
1994), and others are apparent in many international penal narratives and cultures,
recent research suggests that the proliferation of risk-based actuarial models has not
simply replaced welfare strategies (Simon, 1996; Kemshall et al., 1997; Kemshall, 1998,
2002; Lynch, 1998; Robinson, 1999, 2001, 2002; Hannah-Moffat and Shaw, 2001a;
Kemshall and Maguire, 2001; Miller, 2001; Leacock and Sparks, 2002). Arguably, the
welfare/risk binary is overstated. More convincing is O’Malley’s (1999) recent analysis2,
which argues that we are observing ‘mixed models of governance’ or a ‘hybrid formation’
where risk is melded with other policy orientations, such as rehabilitation and restora-
tive justice. What Garland and others fail to explore in sufficient detail is how risk
strategies have evolved and how rehabilitation has been revived as a central feature of
risk/need management and penal control.
Working back from the strategies themselves, I argue3 that the current generations
of risk/need technologies reflect a significant departure from the pessimistic theoreti-
cal accounts of risk in criminal justice associated with the ‘new penology’ and ‘actuar-
ial justice’. I argue risk knowledges are fluid and flexible and capable of supporting a
range of culturally contingent penal strategies. The evolution and meanings of risk in
30
03 048132 (to/d) 23/11/04 3:08 pm Page 31
HANNAH-MOFFAT
Criminogenic needs and transformative risk subject
correctional assessment and classification are examined to show how understandings
of risk have shifted from static to dynamic categorizations. I show how the concept of
need is fused with risk to create ‘dynamic risk/criminogenic need’, how particular
conceptions of ‘need’ and ‘risk’ are situated in local penal narratives, how need recon-
structs risk and revives correctional treatment as an efficient risk minimization strategy.
I argue strategic alignment of risk with narrowly defined intervenable needs contributes
to the production of a transformative risk subject who unlike the ‘fixed or static risk
subject’ is amenable to targeted therapeutic interventions. Newly formed risk/needs
categorizations and subsequent management strategies give rise to a new politics of
punishment, in which different risk/needs groupings compete for limited resources,
discredit collective group claims to resources, redistribute responsibilities for risk/needs
management and legitimate both inclusive and exclusionary penal strategies.
THE EVOLUTION OF CRIMINOGENIC NEED/DYNAMIC RISK
No new form of knowledge is ever without a line of precursors and a hazy ancestry of anal-
ogous practices and objectives. (Garland, 1985: 76)
To illustrate how a ‘mixed model of governance’ operates in contemporary Canadian
penal practices, I examine the genealogy of a specific type of risk, that is, dynamic risk
(or criminogenic need). This is a construct that has become a central organizing feature
of correctional assessment and classification in Canada and elsewhere. This discussion
of criminogenic need/dynamic risk is used to destabilize the assumed risk/welfare binary
and to show how narrow constructions of need are fused with risk, and how need and
risk are reciprocally constituted.4 The emphasis on criminogenic need/dynamic risk
offers a different way of knowing and governing prisoners and prisons than those models
associated with either penal welfarism or static actuarial justice. To further understand
the heterogeneity and evolution of risk and need in the context of assessment, the
following maps the emergence of risk/need thinking as situated in a particular prac-
titioner-driven knowledge. How particular constructions of risk are mediated, resisted,
and re-configured by experts and practitioners is demonstrated. The following is not a
critique of this form of knowledge or of its practical utility; such a debate is beyond the
scope of this article. Here, the concern is with reciprocal conceptualizations of risk and
need, and the production of risk/need knowledge. How does need assessment become
a central aspect of risk prediction and management? Or, alternatively, how are risk tech-
nologies reshaped to fit with an ongoing normative ‘post-welfare’ commitment to thera-
peutic interventions?
Practitioner-driven correctional assessment, classification, and management literature
(dominated by psychology) illustrates that correctional regimes have variously defined
and combined the management of risk and need for over 20 years (Baird, Heinz, and
Bemus, 1979; Megargee and Bohn, 1979; Bonta and Motiuk, 1985, 1987, 1992;
Clements, 1986; Andrews and Bonta, 1998).5 The current phrase, ‘risk/need’, evolved
out of this influential and now deeply embedded practitioner-driven research agenda
that embraced the...
Copyright © SAGE Publications
London, Thousand Oaks, CA
and New Delhi.
www.sagepublications.com
1462-4745; Vol 7(1): 29–51
DOI: 10.1177/1462474505048132
PUNISHMENT
& SOCIETY
Criminogenic needs and
the transformative risk
subject
Hybridizations of risk/need in penality
KELLY HANNAH-MOFFAT
University of Toronto, Canada
Abstract
This article examines the discrepancies between theories of risk and penality and
emergent strategies of risk/need identification and management. Working back from
the strategies themselves, I argue that the current generations of risk/need technologies
are a significant departure from the pessimistic theoretical accounts of risk in criminal
justice associated with the ‘new penology’ and ‘actuarial justice’. I argue that risk knowl-
edges are fluid and flexible and capable of supporting a range of penal strategies. The
evolution and meanings of risk in correctional assessment and classification are
examined to show how understandings of risk have shifted from static to dynamic
categorizations. I show how the concept of need is fused with risk, how particular
conceptions of ‘need’ and ‘risk’ are situated in local penal narratives, how need recon-
structs risk and revives correctional treatment as an efficient risk minimization strategy.
I argue that strategic alignment of risk with narrowly defined intervenable needs
contributes to the production of a transformative risk subject who unlike the ‘fixed or
static risk subject’ is amenable to targeted therapeutic interventions. Newly formed risk/
needs categorizations and subsequent management strategies give rise to a new politics
of punishment, in which different risk/needs groupings compete for limited resources,
discredit collective group claims to resources, redistribute responsibilities for risk/needs
management and legitimate both inclusive and exclusionary penal strategies.
Key Words
classification • need • new penology • risk • theory
Contemporary scholars argue that we are moving towards a ‘risk society’, where many
aspects of social life are governed through objective, actuarial predictions of risk, and
where institutional and organizational structures are ‘embracing risk’ (Baker and Simon,
29
03 048132 (to/d) 23/11/04 3:08 pm Page 30
PUNISHMENT AND SOCIETY 7(1)
2002).1 Much like other social problems, crime is viewed as a calculable, avoidable,
governable risk. ‘Criminals’ are characterized as a risky population to be efficiently and
prudently managed by the state, as well as by citizens and a host of non-state agencies
(Simon, 1993; O’Malley, 1996, 1998, 1999, 2000; Rose, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2002;
Ericson and Haggerty, 1997, 2002; Stenson and Sullivan, 2001; Ericson and Doyle,
2003). Various groups are profiled and regarded as ‘at risk’ (women, youth, and
children). Offender populations routinely are subdivided, categorized, and classified
according to levels of risk (i.e. high, medium, or low). Certain offender groups are
perceived to be exceptionally risky, requiring special legislative control (i.e. sex offend-
ers, mentally ill, recidivists, squeegee kids, and the homeless). Many argue that risk is
a central recognizable feature of penal, legal, and administrative rationalities.
Current analyses of punishment claim that risk and connected actuarial strategies are
displacing welfare strategies, which tailor interventions according to an individual’s
needs (Garland, 2001). For example, in their seminal article on the ‘new penology’,
American scholars Feeley and Simon (1992), argued that modern penal policies have
shifted away from individualized rehabilitative models, towards more strategic, admin-
istrative population management approaches that rely on actuarial techniques of quanti-
fying and assessing the ‘risk’ of certain prisoners. The authors claimed that the ‘new
penology’ does not seek to ‘change’ offenders are through ‘targeted interventions’, rather
policies are concerned with efficiently identifying and managing a person at risk of
reoffending, while minimizing the potential risk to the community (Feeley and Simon,
1992; also see Simon, 1993). Likewise, Garland (2001), in The Culture of Control,
argued that the welfare penal mode is muted in favour of a punitive, expressive, risk
conscious penal mode. Accordingly, offenders are ‘seen as risks that must be managed.
Instead of emphasizing rehabilitative methods that meet the offender’s needs, the system
emphasizes effective controls that minimize costs and maximize security’ (p. 175).
Within this literature, welfarism and neoliberalism tend to be thought of in a linear and
one-dimensional way, proclaiming that the arrival of neoliberalism and risk has
displaced welfare.
Although the discursive shifts outlined by Garland (2001), Feeley and Simon (1992,
1994), and others are apparent in many international penal narratives and cultures,
recent research suggests that the proliferation of risk-based actuarial models has not
simply replaced welfare strategies (Simon, 1996; Kemshall et al., 1997; Kemshall, 1998,
2002; Lynch, 1998; Robinson, 1999, 2001, 2002; Hannah-Moffat and Shaw, 2001a;
Kemshall and Maguire, 2001; Miller, 2001; Leacock and Sparks, 2002). Arguably, the
welfare/risk binary is overstated. More convincing is O’Malley’s (1999) recent analysis2,
which argues that we are observing ‘mixed models of governance’ or a ‘hybrid formation’
where risk is melded with other policy orientations, such as rehabilitation and restora-
tive justice. What Garland and others fail to explore in sufficient detail is how risk
strategies have evolved and how rehabilitation has been revived as a central feature of
risk/need management and penal control.
Working back from the strategies themselves, I argue3 that the current generations
of risk/need technologies reflect a significant departure from the pessimistic theoreti-
cal accounts of risk in criminal justice associated with the ‘new penology’ and ‘actuar-
ial justice’. I argue risk knowledges are fluid and flexible and capable of supporting a
range of culturally contingent penal strategies. The evolution and meanings of risk in
30
03 048132 (to/d) 23/11/04 3:08 pm Page 31
HANNAH-MOFFAT
Criminogenic needs and transformative risk subject
correctional assessment and classification are examined to show how understandings
of risk have shifted from static to dynamic categorizations. I show how the concept of
need is fused with risk to create ‘dynamic risk/criminogenic need’, how particular
conceptions of ‘need’ and ‘risk’ are situated in local penal narratives, how need recon-
structs risk and revives correctional treatment as an efficient risk minimization strategy.
I argue strategic alignment of risk with narrowly defined intervenable needs contributes
to the production of a transformative risk subject who unlike the ‘fixed or static risk
subject’ is amenable to targeted therapeutic interventions. Newly formed risk/needs
categorizations and subsequent management strategies give rise to a new politics of
punishment, in which different risk/needs groupings compete for limited resources,
discredit collective group claims to resources, redistribute responsibilities for risk/needs
management and legitimate both inclusive and exclusionary penal strategies.
THE EVOLUTION OF CRIMINOGENIC NEED/DYNAMIC RISK
No new form of knowledge is ever without a line of precursors and a hazy ancestry of anal-
ogous practices and objectives. (Garland, 1985: 76)
To illustrate how a ‘mixed model of governance’ operates in contemporary Canadian
penal practices, I examine the genealogy of a specific type of risk, that is, dynamic risk
(or criminogenic need). This is a construct that has become a central organizing feature
of correctional assessment and classification in Canada and elsewhere. This discussion
of criminogenic need/dynamic risk is used to destabilize the assumed risk/welfare binary
and to show how narrow constructions of need are fused with risk, and how need and
risk are reciprocally constituted.4 The emphasis on criminogenic need/dynamic risk
offers a different way of knowing and governing prisoners and prisons than those models
associated with either penal welfarism or static actuarial justice. To further understand
the heterogeneity and evolution of risk and need in the context of assessment, the
following maps the emergence of risk/need thinking as situated in a particular prac-
titioner-driven knowledge. How particular constructions of risk are mediated, resisted,
and re-configured by experts and practitioners is demonstrated. The following is not a
critique of this form of knowledge or of its practical utility; such a debate is beyond the
scope of this article. Here, the concern is with reciprocal conceptualizations of risk and
need, and the production of risk/need knowledge. How does need assessment become
a central aspect of risk prediction and management? Or, alternatively, how are risk tech-
nologies reshaped to fit with an ongoing normative ‘post-welfare’ commitment to thera-
peutic interventions?
Practitioner-driven correctional assessment, classification, and management literature
(dominated by psychology) illustrates that correctional regimes have variously defined
and combined the management of risk and need for over 20 years (Baird, Heinz, and
Bemus, 1979; Megargee and Bohn, 1979; Bonta and Motiuk, 1985, 1987, 1992;
Clements, 1986; Andrews and Bonta, 1998).5 The current phrase, ‘risk/need’, evolved
out of this influential and now deeply embedded practitioner-driven research agenda
that embraced the...
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